1. Field of the Invention
The invention herein pertains to a stacked thermostat assembly and especially to a specific assembly used alone or preferably on an iron soleplate where a single integral bracket forms a sole intermediate piece that lines up a first group of stacked thermostat parts and a second group of the thermostat control rod and associated parts such that the single bracket performs multiple functions of shaft bearing, cam surface and stops, and a single locator between the two groups of separate structural parts that comprise the entire stacked thermostat and iron assembly.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Appliances, such as irons, provide a mounting for a temperature controlling thermostat where the mount comprises a boss on the soleplate creating a heat sink or a collecting conductor to sense temperature for the thermostat which is mounted in close contact on the boss to react to desired manually set temperature changes. Generally, in an iron, the thermostat is mounted centrally or in the forward portion of the soleplate to detect the hottest part and react accordingly.
Recent developments have produced lightweight plastic irons at a lower price and such irons have required rearrangement of the otherwise conventional thermostats because of the combining of many functions in the molded plastic that eliminates many parts in the previous metallic irons. Generally, a forward thermostat location is advantageous in irons which provide extra steam capacity whereby an extra slug of water is pumped into a steam boiler, usually a separate chamber, to generate an extra surge of steam which is fed into the distribution system to exit soleplate ports as extra capacity steam. There are numerous types of surge steam irons and a typical one is U.S. Pat. No. 3,919,793 of common assignment wherein the main steam exits most of the soleplate ports and the surge steam is passed through a separate distribution system to exit a small number of ports not connected with the main steam system. Also, the general stacked thermostat is known and used in many appliances such as irons, cooking appliances, and any other appliance where temperature is automatically set usually by a bimetal thermostat. The thermostat controls the heating element to maintain the selected temperature. It is necessary that it be simple, inexpensive, and reliable, and use the fewest number of parts which are easily assembled. Also, it must be accurate and have good calibration characteristics while being compact and have positive "off" position with the electrical contacts well separated. It is known to use cams on the thermostat to position an intermediate stiff blade carrying one of the electrical contacts with the cam allowing an infinite number of temperature settings for the iron. The cam arrangement generally is used on the rotatable shaft with its follower on a movable blade and this arrangement requires extra parts and more complex construction. It is desired to provide a more efficient arrangement in a thermostat assembly that may be used in an iron requiring fewer parts thus reducing the assembly time, cost, and complexity.